Midweek Morning Meditation

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 Dear Parish Faithful,

As I continue to read Theology of the Body by Jean-Claude Larchet, I come across some very fine passages that clearly articulate the Orthodox understanding of our humanity. We need to read and absorb those deep insights, think hard about them, and then seek ways that we can apply this teaching to how we live our lives in the world. This is essential, for we live in a time of an almost radical reduction of our humanity; what Fr. Alexander Schmemann called an "anthropological minimalism." This minimalism permeates every aspect of the contemporary world, including what we call "higher education." We can appreciate the insights that we learn from the world around us and our education, but we turn to the "mind of the Church" to fully understand what and who we are. Be that as it may, in this passage Larchet offers us a fine summary of what the Tradition has always taught us about our creation "in the image and according to the likeness of God." 

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God made man not only in his image but according to this likeness: "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness." (Gen. 1:26). Most of the Fathers distinguish between these two notions; giving them different meanings. The image is actual, already realized; the likeness, on the other hand, is potential or virtual, something still to be accomplished. Whereas the image relates to our nature and is independent of our will- which is why it remains a permanent characteristic of every human being - the likeness relates to our person and depends on our choices, on the inclination of our will, on our way of life as shown in our moods, our inner states, and our actions. Yet the two concepts are not unrelated. On the one hand, it is the image that makes us aim at achieving this likeness and which, moreover, contains the necessary powers and means that it is our responsibility to make use of attaining it. On the other hand, the realization of the likeness corresponds to an actualization of the image's potential. In other words, to strive for the likeness enables us to accomplish, in our own person, our nature as humans, to flourish, and to realize ourselves fully.

For the Fathers, it is by means of the virtues that we can become like God, and it is in this likeness to God, acquired by a collaboration between free will and the grace given us that we can ultimately become a partaker of divine life - a participation to which we are both destined by our nature and called by personal vocation.

Theology of the Body, p. 27